Effective August 1st, there is a ban on smoking — including e-cigarettes — both inside and anywhere outside certain government premises, including health care facilities, residential care facilities, educational, daycare and preschool facilities, plus the bus and ferry terminals.

“The Act is intended to protect children from tobacco products, strengthen provisions controlling smoking and to control the sale and use of e-cigarettes and cigarette rolling papers in order to protect human health and in particular reduce exposure to chronic disease risk factors.

“The Department of Health would like to inform the public that from 1 August, there is a ban on smoking, including e-cigarettes, both inside and anywhere outside certain government premises.

“These premises include health care facilities, residential care facilities, educational, daycare and preschool facilities, plus the bus and ferry terminals. Smoking inside all Government premises, including vehicles, has been banned for a decade.

“The new Act also controls tobacco advertising and sale in order to protect human health, and is generally intended to protect children from tobacco products.

“Some of the major changes or additions compared to the 1987 Act are:

Controls of tobacco descriptors [no use of the words mild or light allowed], prohibition on flavoured tobacco, controls over tobacco product advertising that is attractive to children and controls on promotions to prevent children from obtaining and using tobacco products;

The vaping of electronic cigarettes will be on par with the existing prohibition on smoking inside;

Cigarette rolling papers have been designated as tobacco products so that they cannot be purchased by minors;

Inspectors have been given authority to seize products that contravene the Act;

The size and wording of health warnings on tobacco will change [warnings will have to be larger, taking up 30% of the principal panel of the package] and the requirement to state the amount of tar contained in cigarettes has been removed.

Minister of Health and Seniors, Jeanne Atherden said, “According to the Centers for Disease Control, smoking is the leading cause of preventable death.

“Smokers have a significantly increased risk of multiple cancers, particularly lung cancer, and are at far greater risk of heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and other fatal and non-fatal conditions.

“This new tobacco control legislation aims to reduce the number of people who contract smoking-related diseases, and particularly aims to help prevent the next generation from starting to smoke.”

“The Department of Health’s vision is ‘healthy people in healthy communities’,” said Director of Health David Kendell.

“We recognise that the change will prove a major adjustment for many smokers, but we believe all will understand that it is the right action to take.”

Lol this stupid backwards government and leaders we have. You promote tourism but legislate to restrict tobacco use. Never in my life where I have seen a country take steps backwards to try and get ahead. I’m mad and I don’t even smoke!!! But that’s what’s wrong with the typical Bermudian, you all don’t stand up for nothing no more. Glad I left that rock….

So, e-cigarettes, which are responsible for SAVING the lives of smokers are being more heavily regulated than analog cigs that are taking the lives of smokers! Tell me again how this act is for our own health benefit?

Nonsense. There are absolutely NO such studies that have survived peer review. Stop spreading the Big Tobacco sponsored FUD and misinformation. E-cigs save lives. Even the CDC acknowledges this, saying;

E-cigarettes could lead to public health BENEFIT if: • Individual adult smokers switch completely from combustible tobacco products to e- cigarettes. • They assist in rapid transition to a society with little or no combustible tobacco use.

Nonsense. No such report has ever survived peer review and/or impartial investigation. As for being a healthy alternative, no one would say they are 100% safe, but they are a much safer, viable alternative to analog cigs. The following is from the CDC;

E-cigarettes could lead to public health BENEFIT if: • Individual adult smokers switch completely from combustible tobacco products to ecigarettes.

• They assist in rapid transition to a society with little or no combustible tobacco use.

No, not the well beloved devils soup, now drinking in public is legal, sunday sales, gas stations selling booze, liquor licenses renewed despite violence, public nuisance or patrons going down the road after being plied with drinks and killing themselves/others, dozens carted to hospital from alcohol poisoning over the “emancipation day” holiday goes unreported, drunks drive with impunity since roadside sobriety checks are unconstitutional, and how young do kids start drinking again NDC? 7 was it? etc. etc.

Uh, yes it is, laws were changed for the AC events to allow it, but there is and was for years, a tent selling liquor in the walkway in front of the aptly named Rum Bum Bar and restaurant at horseshoe bay, where people drink openly in public, around kids. Just illegal for “vagrants” I guess.

Good idea,I will try it with a beer bottle re-filled with water, see what happens, then get an exec fiend to stand at the same spot with a fake cocktail in a glass, maybe a hot girl sipping a glass of wine to gauge comparative interactions with the po-po. Is Horsehoe Bay private?

Make sure you include this in any and all tourism publications we don’t want our guest to end up in court in droves.It would bring in that tourism dollar heh heh at a cost more than it was worth.I don’t smoke by the way and neither should anyone else.It is no worse feeling being in hospital ready to die surrounded by loved ones knowing it was all your own doing.

As someone who has recently quit smoking tobacco (for the better) i dont agree with most of this pathetic legislation. I undertsand that on certain properties its banned and thats soley down to the owner but the banning of certain products and especially the ecig issue is totally out of hand. I for one as an adult can make an informed decision. Kids nowadays should still rely on their parents to know not to smoke. Better time, money and effort would have been better spent on education rather than outright prohibition; as we all know that doesnt really work!!

I support the idea but how are you going to police it. Easy enough to do inside buildings but with places like the bus terminal where does the no smoke zone begin and end. The whole area between Victoria and Church St. Best of luck with this one

Easy to ban cigs but what are you doing about vehicles? $20m spent on donal’s bright idea but anyone that rides behind our buses knows how many toxins they emit. Shouldn’t legislate one without the other.

No flavored tobacco? that is a violation of human rights. Law in bermuda was you could smoke at 16 my whole life until recently. now they act like uptight crazy people on some personal agenda. banning all those things wont stop people from smoking. focus more on stopping kids getting booze. YOU ALL KNOW YOUR KIDS GET DRUNK. WE ALL DID IT. WE ALL ACCEPT IT. How many kids drink compared to smoke? How many of those kids who drink will drink the rest of their life? hm,mmmmm? How many kids who smoke give it up by the time they leave school or college? Most kids who smoke give it up. Most only do it to look cool. Adults are the ones who take it up addictively due to stress of jobs and life etc. but kids who DRINK BOOZE at young ages has been PROVEN to be life alcoholics. Do the math! Stop being hypocrites! You ban what is easy, but what about what is hard? You ban the cure for cancer too! What a joke! Its like you want us to get sick and die!

Go ban flavored alcohol too, i hear that kids like that more than poison falvored alcohol. Go ban alcohol with colourful and flashy advertising. Go ban all alcohol ads in public and on tv. Go hide and cover all the alcohol in the stores so kids cannot see it, like you do with tobacco now. Ban the sale of any alcohol which SAYS it is of a certain percentage, because you do that with tobacco now. You say it cannot have Light medium or regular strength on it? Fine. Ban all booze which labels itself as lower, medium, or higher alcohol content. Find yourself in the same paradox of ignorance and impossibility. Congratulations. Go ban corkscrews in stores since kids can use them to open alcohol. Go ban bottleopeners for the same reason. Go ban , go ba. go ban. go ban…… We can drive to the gas station now and buy booze and get back in our car, but I cannot go buy some strawberry flavored cigs? What a crock of trash. That strawberry cigarette is not going to drive into another car and crush people. It would just go in MY lungs in MY house, minding my own business.

Put a F#@kin ban on living your life as you see fit…All you f#@king idiots that believe what ever comes out of the CDC’s mouth…The same people that profit off of tobacco is the same people who introduced e-cigs to supplement loses from tobacco sales…they’re not as stupid as you are that’s why they are economically superior to the rest of us consumers…The half dozen people that own ALL industries world wide profit from the sales of pharmaceuticals pushed on you to treat your copd….its all by design.

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